Matthew Flinders was born in Donington, Lincolnshire,…

Matthew Flinders was born in Donington, Lincolnshire, England, the son of Matthew Flinders, a surgeon, and his wife Susannah, née Ward.

He had joined the Royal Navy in 1789 at the age of fifteen.

Initially serving on HMS Alert, he had transferred to HMS Scipio, and in July 1790 had been made midshipman on HMS Bellerophon under Captain Pasley.

By Pasley's recommendation, he joined Captain Bligh's expedition on HMS Providence, transporting breadfruit from Tahiti to Jamaica.

Flinders' first trip to Port Jackson had been in 1795 as a midshipman aboard HMS Reliance, carrying the newly appointed Governor of New South Wales, Captain John Hunter.

He had quickly established himself on this voyage has a fine navigator and cartographer, and had become friends with the ship's surgeon, George Bass.

Bass and Flinders, not long after their arrival in Port Jackson, had made two expeditions in small open boats, both named Tom Thumb: the first to Botany Bay and Georges River; the second, in a larger Tom Thumb, south from Port Jackson to Lake Illawarra.

Flinders, a Lieutenant in 1798, is given command of the Norfolk and orders "to sail beyond Furneaux's Islands, and, should a strait be found, pass through it, and return by the south end of Van Diemen's Land".

The passage between the Australian mainland and Tasmania enables savings of several days on the journey from England, and will eventually be named Bass Strait, after his close friend George Bass, who has accompanied him on this voyage.

The largest island in Bass Strait will later be named Flinders Island in honor of this discovery.

The town of Flinders near the mouth of Western Port also commemorates Bass' discovery of that bay and port on January 4, 1798.